To send my DC to nursery with a cold?

[Cloudbow]

Nursery have told us that there’s a child in my DCs room that is vulnerable to respiratory illnesses and to think about it keeping children home if they have a respiratory infection. My Dd has a cold and a mild cough currently, aibu to send her in to nursery? No temperature or vomiting so usually she’d go in no question.

We don’t have any family back up and we can’t take time off work to look after children that are well enough to go to nursery so we’re going to have to send her in. Should I mention it to the staff tomorrow when I drop her off or just send her in and don't say anything?

Remember when everyone was wringing their hands about staying home and protecting others?

Obviously I knew it was bullshit but this sort of thing makes it extra annoying.

#bekind

My twins had back to back colds solidly from October to March when they were that little. No way would they be kept off.

Ate you offering to pay the unused nursery fee and pay for a day of unpaid leave from work for the parent?

I think it would be ideal to stay off childcare when ill with even something minor. But pay isn't set up for it.

I donf know what the answer is.

I am just saying face the fact that you might kill someone to save a buck. Fine if that's the choice you make up to you.

I would if it's a slight cold. I swear most of my daughters preschool class had a cold or a cough from October right through to April. We stand at the door to let them go into the classroom and all the kids are coughing or had snot running down their nose. 🤮

It's sad but colds are unavoidable. My daughter got a letter from the headteacher asking us to watch out for chicken pox and not to send her in if we think she might have been exposed to it. But that was because a child had just beat cancer in the year above.

The problem with “you can’t keep them off for every illness” type comments is what’s often meant is “you can’t keep them off for any illness…unless we are found out”. It seems that as the numbers of people becoming ill increase, along with the frequency they become ill, “cold” is the catch-all term to get away with continually increasing the prevalence of every nasty illness kids and their families are exposed to. I just wish people would own it, or at least be upfront about the illness, so that others can make the choice to keep their kid off, rather than end up in hospital. If it was a mild, unnoticeable sniffle, I doubt you’d be asking the question on here, because you’ve as good enough stated that the risk you might feel guilty trumps another kid’s health.

If it wouldn’t be so shitty to the kids involved, I think that a back-up local nursery for children to go to when they’re contagious (but can’t be kept at home) could save a lot of other families money and health, due to a more manageable level of illness.

I get it. I was shielding in the pandemic. I have health issues.

But genuinely what is the answer? It would need to change at a society level that EVERYONE would do it.

Cos what employer is going to pay everytime you can't come into work cos your child has sniffles. I don't mean vomiting or pox or croup or covid I mean a sniffly runny nose cold.

Genuinely how will it work? Mortgage still needs paid. I would LOVE everyone to be able to be off when they had even a mild cold. But even though I have been hospitalised from mild colds I can see that the way society is set up currently doesn't allow for that. It would need huge policy changes and every sector agreeing.

Unless you’ve never gone to work with even a mild cold, you may have made the same choice. Anyone you work with might be vulnerable, or have a vulnerable family member living with them.

So many unkind people. I think they’re probably asking you to follow their policy and not to dose them up and hope for the best, Or send them in knowing they’ll be sent home in a few hours.

You don’t know why the child is vulnerable and why that might be worse for them. You don’t know if they are already missing huge amount( or have missed) of time. If, for example, they’ve had chemo, they might be cleared to return but have been told by doctors to be careful. Nursery are trying to support all their children.

If they’ve just got a cold/
cpugh then I think it’s fine - that would be fine at our nursery. Some children seem to have this permanently!

As an update I sent my dd in and mentioned she had a cold on drop off. They asked if we were able to keep her home and I said no unless they would refund the nursery costs for the days she’s off as we’d have to find other childcare. They said they can’t do that and we are allowed to send her in, they are just requesting not if we can keep home. So she went in and is going in again today.

No they weren’t asking us to follow their policy, they acknowledged she was fine to go in under their policy as no temperature or d&v, and is generally fine in herself. She does just have a cold and a slight cough. They are asking us to go above the policy if we can, but confirmed yesterday that we can still send her in they’re just requesting us not to if possible. It’s not possible for us so dd went in.

Glad to hear she went in and there was minimum pushback OP.

Yep.

When your child has gone through cancer treatment, they have likely already missed loads of school. You just want them to be a normal kid again.

My son is almost 10 months out of finishing chemo and had shingles recently. His immune system still isn't what it was before chemo.

Hmm - not sure bout this. Both my kids (in nursery) would have been off for months if I couldn't send them in with colds.

Well ultimately this is a very difficult situation. I can say with 100% certainty that there is no way I would have been able to keep my children in a nursery where I wasn't able to send them in with colds. They would have had months off a year. So I'd have had to send them in or found another setting. I suspect this would be the same for most parents (because ultimately most people have childcare because they need it, not for fun).

The nursery could offer not to charge people if they are happy to keep their kids home with colds (although this wouldn't have helped me, because I didn't lower nursery fees, I needed childcare) but I note they are not.

As upsetting as this is for the child in question, it's simply not practical for most people to keep their kids home if they have a cold. Occasional stomach bugs or very bad colds is one thing, but a runny nose or a slight cough is basically our norm in the winter.

It's a difficult one - ultimately DD is in nursery for childcare - or was when I was working - so it would have been difficult to keep her off if she was well enough to go in. I don't think nursery are necessarily wrong to ask though - I'm now on mat leave so would be able to keep her home in this situation.

I think there has to be some balance and understanding on both sides. I had this dilemma when a child at my son’s nursery had radiation therapy for leukaemia. The child was off for months but immunocompromised when she came back in, and before you say her parents should have kept her off, she actually did need to be in nursery for support with her SEN. At that young age, early intervention with learning is absolutely critical. So they asked us not to send in our children if they were ill. My dilemma was my son had been hospitalised for an eczema flare so bad that he required IV antibiotics. He was then vaccinated against chickenpox because viruses cause his eczema to flare. Chickenpox is a live vaccine which meant he couldn’t be in close proximity to anyone immunocompromised.

So who got to send their child to nursery? Well we both did, and this is where communication and compromise is really important. Our nursery manager was able to arrange staff and rooming so they wouldn’t be in close proximity. It actually wasn’t a big deal in the end. But these situations are rarely black and white and I’m sure if your child was immunocompromised and you needed to work you would hope other parents would be open to conversations about how to keep everyone safe.

Well that would be rediculous. Every winter, and at other times of the year, nurseries across the country are full of snotty kids.

The first winter at nursery is brutal while children get used to mixing all the germs.

A sniffle is fine, a fever is not.

People guilt tripping to say think of the child are not living in the real world where most people send their kid to nursery because they have no choice and pay a lot of money for it!!!

It’s really sad that there is a vulnerable child but everyone that works on the tills at Sainsbury’s can’t stay off every winter when they have a cold because of one vulnerable
person. The vulnerable person stays off.

Also kids can have illness that peak and then still have a snotty nose for weeks sometimes and be fine.

Perfect, you are doing all you can x

I really feel for the parents of the vulnerable child but everybody knows nurseries are an absolute cesspit of germs and illness.

I don't think it's the best setting for a young and vulnerable child (childminder would be much better).

It will get the a point that if they ask all the kids with colds to stay home, they'll have nobody there - staff included.

A medically vulnerable child can't stay off forever either. They tend to miss months of nursery/school as it is.

My son missed almost all of Year 3 and only started Year 4 after Easter thanks to cancer. How is he supposed to catch up from the school he's already missed if he can't attend school because his immune system still isn't where it was before chemotherapy?

As pp said, I think there needs to be understanding on both sides. I don't expect others to keep their child off school every time they have a sniffle but some consideration would be nice such as telling the teacher as a simple cold can land my son in hospital.

@Kirbert2 of course, telling the teacher would be absolutely fine and easy. I always tell them anyway just so they know and I always keep my child off with fever/lethargy/ sickness and diarrhoea.

They are also usually always very aware when a cold is going round, several times I’ve said oh my child is a bit snotty and they reply with a laugh like it’s totally normal!

Winter season is tissues everywhere and snotty jumper sleeves on the kids.

I'm really dreading winter season, it will be his first winter season in school since Year 3 which is crazy considering he'll be Year 5 in September.

Hopefully his immune system will be that bit stronger by then.

I feel sorry for the child with the vulnerability to respiratory illness and their family but I do think it’s very reasonable for parents to send their kids to nursery with a cold as long as it is just a cold and there is no fever etc. I also think it’s a slightly odd decision to use nursery for childcare for a child like this, it’s possibly the worst possible setting for a child like that really, but perhaps it’s a temporary issue or it comes down to cost for them, or nursery for them is less about childcare and more about socialisation etc.